“When we look at the supreme court’s action against the Voting Rights Act, it’s really a kneecap – a way to discriminate, to silence voters who fought so hard for this right….I think it’s an assault on the struggle of the civil rights movement. We cannot turn around. We’ve come too far.”
These are words that Sheyann Webb-Christburg shared with The Guardian in the wake of the late April 2026 Louisiana v. Callais SCOTUS decision challenging Louisiana’s 2nd Black congressional district. Sheyann was known as “the smallest freedom fighter” of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement because she participated in the Selma’s Bloody Sunday March in 1965 at just eight years old.
If you just did some quick math, you realized that Sheyann is in her late 60s today. People in this country put their lives and livelihoods on the line to support the passing and ongoing protection of the Voting Rights Act — and some of those individuals, like Sheyann, are still with us today. Sheyann and others who risked so much are witnessing the final stages of its gutting under our current Supreme Court and the shameful racial gerrymandering across several states in the weeks to follow.
Hear directly from Sheyann in this short video from the ACLU about why and how her involvement in Bloody Sunday forever changed her mindset towards voting rights:
Justice Elena Kagan declared in her minority dissent in Callais that the decision renders Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act “all but a dead letter.” For this reason, Sheyann Webb-Christburg and Americans around the country are incensed.
Do you need a place to process your anger? Or perhaps a space to learn more about the far-reaching consequences of these decisions? Join SURJ NYC at our June 2026 Chapter Meeting this Thursday at 6:30pm to learn in community, and then to practice ways of pushing back on this assault on voting rights, particularly as white people. Together, we will move money and practice challenging the dominant narratives that got us to this moment.
In solidarity,
SURJ NYC